Match Report – Saturday 15th November – Gents 1s

Uddingston 5 – St Andrews 2

This was a fairly comfortable day for the Mens’ 1s on a chilly afternoon at Bothwell Castle.

Playing without Glenn Turner, who has headed back to Australia, and Sean Baker, who has gone off to play in Europe, the team nonetheless turned in a creditable, winning performance which secured fourth place in the Premiership. At the start of the season, there’s not a player or coach who wouldn’t have been happy with fourth in the league at the winter break, so job done.

Along the way, there have been some momentous wins not least defeating Grange and unbeaten league leaders Watsonians on their home patch. St Andrews have played some decent hockey during the season. And while they have lost every game, there were some close ones. They might feel they were unlucky not to have secured a point or two against Hillhead, to whom they lost 1-2 in late September, or against Dundee Wanderers, another 1-2 scoreline last month. They might be newly promoted, but they were no slouches on the hockey pitch and they played with enthusiasm and no little amount of skill.

Gradually, however, Uddingston squeezed the life out of them.

Only six minutes into the match, Angus Sinclair found himself in the St Andrews circle and fired off a back stick strike that was well saved. The rebound was picked up by Max Strachan who flicked a lovely reverse pass through the defence to Finn Halliday who was waiting unmarked near the goal, 1-0.

One minute later, Ben Young carried the ball into the St Andrews D, was shouldered by a defender, and won the first penalty corner of the game. The St Andrews keeper, Antoine Nyssen, who had a good game, pushed Sinclair’s drag flick out with his glove, but only to Ben Young who finished what he had started, picked up the ball just right of the p spot and slotted it home for 2-0.

St Andrews weren’t done yet though. A deep overhead from Daniel Leitch, one of many in the game, was picked up in the midfield and filtered down the left. The uni left wing was able to find space in the Uddy D, fired a dangerous ball right across the goal and just out of reach of Uddy keeper Nic Hadland. The cross was tapped home at the far post for 2-1.

Nine minutes into the second quarter, Anup Valmiki hoisted an attacking medium range overhead to the St Andrews’ baseline where Fergus Fitzgerald, in his second game back from injury, picked the ball out of the air beautifully, swept forward toward the goal and found a defender’s foot for Uddy’s second penalty corner.

This set the scene for what some Uddy squad members apparently call the “Russian Twist”, in which Sinclair feints a flick and lays it off to Jedd Campbell who duly dispatches his own quick fire flick top bins for 3-1. It worked to perfection and the game had become comfortable once more.

Just before half time, a St Andrews defender cleared his lines with an overhead, but Sinclair stopped it dead in midfield, nutmegged an advancing opponent, and launched a counter attack through the lively Angus Millar. Later winning man of the match for his contribution, Millar picked up Sinclair’s pass, saw Fitzgerald in space in the D, found him with an astute pass and Fitzgerald smash it past Nyssen for 4-1.

Deep in the third quarter, a still feisty St Andrews won a penalty corner. The ball was slapped in hard and the injector was on hand for an excellent deflection high into the Uddy net for 4-2.

Uddy weren’t going to panic though. Early in the fourth quarter, Fitzgerald – who had an excellent game – tackled St Andrews midfielder Zak Wedgwood, pinched the ball off him and drove toward the circle at speed. He flicked a pass to Louis Gardiner at top D. Gardiner returned the ball to Fitzgerald who had moved into space on the p spot but a great save from Nyssen kept the ball out. Finn Halliday was waiting, however, picked up the rebound and finished off the move from close range for 5-2 and his second goal of the game.

So Uddy had never been in danger in this game and did what they had to do to get the job done.

St Andrews fought hard until the end but were outgunned by a confident and fluent home team. This was Uddy’s seventh win of the season. ESM will remain three points back as they have completed their 11 matches while Grange are six behind with a trip to Auchenhowie up next.

With points in the bag against Watsonians, Uddingston are in a good position in fourth and can look forward to the top six matches in the new year with hope and optimism.

Adrian Hadland

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